Sunday, October 18, 2009
Cool Tools
Of all the cool tools I am citing, I know that I will use www.homeworknow.com the most. I use this literally every day to update homework assignments. I ask my students to check it for their homework and often include links on it to resources for them. It is much easier to maintain than posting to the school's web site (for which I have to ask our school's technology coordinator to update every time I make changes to my professional page). My school has an account with homeworknow.com and many of the other teachers use it, and so our students are familiar with the site. This is not, perhaps, the most creative or original use of technology to support the classroom, but it is very very useful and very very practical. It not only helps students who have been absent and want to check what work they missed, but it also is a place for the students to go if they forget what their homework is, or if they want a "one stop shop" for links to other online resources. I have lots of links from there to handouts, other helpful web sites, online review, etc. I definitely could NOT imagine not having that site. If your schools do not use it, I would strongly recommend you talk to your principals about getting a school account.
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I have used homeworknow for many years. I also used a freeshare site to upload movies,powerpoints etc.. etc, right into HWN. We are not using it this year. Our tech team decided not to use the money, which it is expensive to have that site. Instead we all have free blogs or webpages that we use and it of course updates as you want. I now like having the blog. I like the different options that i have, like setting up a HW assignment where kids respond back in the blog. It has been very successful.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a great tool and very practical for busy teachers. What a pain to have the tech coordinator update every time you change homework! I like that you can have a lot of links to websites, homework, and other handouts. I think it is a great way to incorporate technology in a practical way for teachers and students. You are also giving the students more resources in addition to their homework assignments. If your school has to cut it for budget reasons, I think a free blog might be the best answer.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great site and certainly something I would like to implement the next time I teach. My question is how much time does it take to use this tool, and how user-friendly is it? I love that you mentioned how great a resource is it for students that are absent. That was always a show stopping dilemma for me when the little brother or sister from a different grade level would come in with that note, always mid lesson, and you'd have to stop everything to collect work for them to do at home.
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